Burning Copper
by Muscarie
Summary: Very short look at the feast from prince Oberryn's point of view. It seemed he had not been the only one to be stung by the burning copper of Sansa's hair.
1. Chapter 1

**Contains spoilers for the second episode of season 4. **

The Red Viper did not need to dart his tongue out to feel how extremely wrong things had suddenly turned.

Tyrion Lannister was refusing to kneel, King Joffrey was refusing to lose face, and no one knew how to break the horrible tension they were all feeling. Oberryn glanced around. All these proud lords and ladies, smiles frozen in place, pretending not to feel the electric, morbid stench, pretending not to notice the cold sweat running down their backs in the insuffocatebly hot air.

And still, the little lion refused to kneel, and the little king refused to let it go.

Oberryn's keen eye saw Tyrion's young wife shift uneasily in her seat, saw her resignated glare on her husband's back, silently urging him to just give in. He would kneel to his nephew, so what? If kneeling meant life then kneel they would. The young lady Stark, no, the young lady _Lannister's_ mask of steel did not let any feeling shine through, but Oberryn had seen many such porcelain masks before and he knew the lady' strength lied in her ability to conceal and suppress her feelings. She needed to survive, it was pure miracle she was still among them to begin with.

She was doing her best to disappear into the tapestry, still as a statue. This was her only chance at King's Landing, disappear, become a flower on the wall. So why was she letting herself urge her husband on, show an opinion?

What a comical little couple they made, these two. They were so ill-matched it was risible. The tall girl with the stocky dwarf. He could see no love whatsoever between them, yet they supported each other, like two prisoners sentenced to death forced to share a cell as they awaited their execution.

The lady was stunning.

As she watched her husband, Oberryn was able to let his eyes wander over Sansa's form once again. Tall, slender, graceful, a true lady of the North. Her face was lovely, pale and smooth, her eyes shone a bright blue although she did not smile. But her hair, her hair was simply glorious. He could see she sported a simple, 'boring' hairdo designed to help her become as invisible as was humanly possible when burdened with such flamboyant beauty, but the copper tresses rebelliously caught any light and reflected it with stunning intensity.

His mouth went dry.

Suddenly, her ocean gaze crossed his dark one and he looked down, caught red handed. Again. She had captured his attention once already, when she had got out of her seat and knelt under the table to pass the fallen cup to her lord husband, sparing him the need to kneel at least once. He had looked at her then, touched by her quiet strength, silenced by her entrancing beauty. And she had caught him too, then.

His eyes travelled up to the lady standing behind the king, Queen Margaery, he corrected himself, and he saw with embarrassment that she had caught him looking at the lady Sansa too. Again. She threw him a discreet smile which he returned. He could consider himself warned. He had been caught twice, and she was the Queen. A talented Queen, at that.

He settled for looking at his hands instead, crossed in front of him, and in which were entwined his paramour's delicate fingers.

"I said, KNEEL!"

And still the drenched dwarf would not kneel.

"The pie!" Cried Margaery, and tension was lost, everyone relieving in the Queen' sense of timing.

A gigantic cake was brought forward, the King snatched his cup away from his uncle, Oberryn caught the lady Sansa' solemn posture weakening ever so slightly, he saw the soft sigh of pure relief escape her pink lips, and he saw both the new Queen and the dwarf lord look to the young lady Lannister.

It seemed he was not the only one whose eye had been stung by the burning copper of Sansa's hair.


	2. Lemon Cakes

**Ok, so... It was a one shot, but I committed another one. Sorry, it won't happen** **again.**

No one knew quite what it was, but they could all feel it.

The dwarf, the king's fool, the new Queen, the matriarch from High Gardens, the Viper. Even the Hound had felt it.

There was something about the lady Sansa which brought out the knight in shining armor in everyone around.

Everyone except the King, obviously.

Maybe it was her manners, or her elegance, or her gracefulness. Maybe it was her beauty. The flame of her hair. She was like a lady from the old tales, tales which told of genteel love and good deeds, and all men, or women, who got near Sansa seemed to get the impulse to be more like the heroes from those stories.

Oberyn could not tell what it was, but the lady Sansa made him want to behave, and yet he knew nothing much of her.

Oh he knew of her family, of course, he knew of her father's assassination, and he knew of her mother, and brother, and his pregnant wife, killed at a wedding. He knew a lot about grief, and this, he felt, meant he knew a fair bit about Sansa Stark. Sansa Lannister had to live along her family's murderers, along a teenage boy who despised her, and she had to share her bed with a Lannister._ Not that they seem to do much in that bed_, he thought. Tyrion Lannister was renowned for his antics with prostitutes, and he generally had a taste for attractive women and good wits. If it was not for his blood, Oberyn would be tempted to call the dwarf a decent person. But as decent as Tyrion might be, Oberyn had not known a Northerner to deny an offered virgin, whatever said virgin's wishes might be. And yet, everyone with the slightest bit of intelligence could see that Tyrion Lannister had yet to touch his wife, and that the wife repaid this...this _decency_ with quiet respect. It would just be a nod of her copper head, or a hand put on his arm, or a graceful smile, or the way she discreetly made allowances for his height without it looking overdone or anything other than common courtesy. It was not much, in other words, yet Tyrion seemed to rejoice in it, and Oberyn could feel himself starting to wish for it too.

He, too, wanted the lady's chaste favours.

He, too, could be the lady's righteous knight.

So when he caught the burning copper of Sansa's hair betraying her presence in the gardens, Prince Oberyn all but leapt down the stairs to try and meet her. Not that he had any idea of what he would say to her. He strode through the paths, all the way to the balcony he would later learn was the lady's favourite. When he got there, he saw her sitting there, with her back to him, the flames of her glorious hair flowing down her straight back. She was looking at the sea, and the gentle breeze carressed her hair and was all her tresses needed as an excuse to catch and reflect the sunlight, throwing it to the world in a thousand directions. He saw that there was a plate full of lemon cakes, the lady's favourite, on the table by her arm. _This is it_, he thought, _we all feel we must ensure that before eveything else is done, the lady Sansa's plate has been filled with lemon cakes. _

He stood there, not knowing what to do next, but quite content to just be near her for a little while. He supposed she had come there to be alone with her pain. He had done that too, at first, then when solitude had proved sufficient he had come to King's Landing with a revenge.

His thoughts had started to drift off when a spark of fire caught his eye and he looked back at the lady. She was flinching away from a persistant bumblebee who could not seem to decide whether it wanted to land on her cakes or on her nose. This was his chance.

Quick and swift as a snake, Oberyn crossed the few feet separating him from the lady, and in one easy movement he picked up an empty cup and imprisoned the bumblebee in it, trapping it on the table. Startled, Sansa looked up to him, and, his dark eyes looking into her bright blue ones, Oberyn removed his hand from the upside down cup on the table. The bumblebee could be heard inside, flying around and clumsily bumping into the sides of the cup.

The Dornish prince let his fingers linger on the table by the cup, just a few centimetres away from her arm. He could not, for the life of him, tear his eyes away from Sansa's. Her eyes were of a marvellous colour. They were of a deep, dark blue, like when you were far at sea and the sun was shining above your head, and there was a star-like pattern of crisper, lighter blue around the irises. Was it the eyes, then, that everyone fought for? Or was it the extraordinary combination of colours, from the roaring fire of her hair to the deep blue of her eyes? The soft pink of her cheeks and lips? How did so much colour end up bottled up in one single girl?

"Thank you, my lord...?" She said, ever so proper.

"Oberyn Martell" he replied, skipping the Prince.

He had still to look away. He could tell she was slightly impressed by his antics, and he rejoiced in it.

"I do not believe we have been introduced yet, I am lady S..."

"Sansa!" a voice called out.

The spell was broken, they both turned around and saw Margaery Tyrell walking over to them, a slight frown upon her pretty face. Oberyn smiled. It seemed the young lady Tyrell was never very far from Sansa. Margaery reached them, greeted Oberyn as elegantly as a Queen would, then extended her hand towards Sansa.

"I must speak to my dear Sansa, I am afraid, Prince Oberyn."

"'Tis no trouble, my lady" replied Oberyn, bowing slightly.

He watched as the two ladies retreated to the castle, and his hand found the cup. It is strange, he thought, so much fuss over one single little lady from the North... He released the bumblebee, which flew straight to the lady Sansa's forgotten cakes.

**sorry.**


End file.
